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Book
The Greeks in the East
Eight authoritative essays explore the changing relationships between the Greeks and their Eastern neighbours from the Bronze Age to the Classical period, examining archaeological evidence in the shape of pottery, wall-painting, sculpture, architecture, jewellery, seals, and inscriptions. The papers cover a wide range of topics, including trade, settlements, and cultural...Villing, Alexandra
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Book chapter
Mediterranean encounters: Greeks, Carians and Egyptians in the first millennium BC
The first millennium BC was a crucial period in the history of contact between Egypt and Greece. Three case studies examine the processes and people behind and the impact of this contact. They will take us from sixth century BC cosmopolitan Memphis, with its international population including Greeks and Carians,...Villing, Alexandra
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Book
Greek and Roman Medicine at the British Museum: The Instruments and Accoutrements of Ancient Medicine
Greek and Roman Medicine at the British Museum is an authoritative and up-to-date study of Greek and Roman medicine and surgery. This book is the first full, and fully illustrated, publication of the Museum’s important collection. Strategies for the preservation of health and for the prevention and treatment of illness...Jackson, Ralph
History of collecting, History of medicine, and Classical world
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Book
The world of Stonehenge
Stonehenge is one of the best known, but most misunderstood, monuments in the world. Contrary to the common belief, it was not a static, unchanging structure built by shadowy figures or druids. Rather, it represents the cumulative achievement of numerous generations who were woven into a complex and widespread network...Garrow, Duncan ; Wilkin, Neil
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Book
Sicily: Heritage of the World
The island of Sicily is at the heart of the Mediterranean and from ancient times to the present day it has been a hub of migration and settlement. Following on from the British Museum’s critically acclaimed 2016 exhibition Sicily: culture and conquest, this volume considers the history and material culture...Booms, Dirk ; Higgs, Peter John
Sicily, Norman history, ancient history, medieval history, and archaeology
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Book chapter
The colophons of Ashurbanipal, King of the World
Colophons mark the constituents of what may have been the first attempt to assemble all significant written scholarly knowledge in one place. The 7th century BC cuneiform collection of Ashurbanipal of Assyria lets us understand intellectual life in the ancient Middle East. More than twenty different, apparently standardised, colophon texts...Taylor, Jon ; Jiménez, Enrique ; Schnitzlein, Babette ; Cohen, Sophie
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Book chapter
Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden egg? Some thoughts on bird sacrifices in Ancient Greece
Sokrates’ famous last words, ‘Krito, I owe a cock to Asklepios; will you remember to pay the debt?’, as reported in Plato’s Phaidon (117e–18a), have long occupied scholars trying to understand the reason for the ‘debt’, but the choice of sacrificial animal has equally surprised. Cattle, sheep, goats and pigs...Villing, Alexandra
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Book
Inspired by the East: How the Islamic world Influenced Western Art
A broad view of the West's complex relationship with the Middle East and North Africa, told through a selection of exquisite art objects. This publication accompanies the exhibition 'Inspired by the East: how the Islamic world influenced Western art' organized by the British Museum and the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia.Greenwood, William ; de Guise, Lucien
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Book chapter
Two sides of the coin: from Sophytes to Skanda-Karttikeya
This volume provides a thorough conspectus of the field of Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek studies, mixing theoretical and historical surveys with critical and thought-provoking case studies in archaeology, history, literature and art. The chapters from this international group of experts showcase innovative methodologies, such as archaeological GIS, as well as providing...Jansari, Sushma
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Book
Chinese Numismatics: The World of Chinese Money
This is the first book to explore the history of the field of Chinese numismatics from both Eastern and Western perspectives. Consisting of four papers that complement each other beautifully, it gives a sound introduction to the study of Chinese numismatics, focusing on the 19th century and, crucially, how to...Wang, Helen ; Thierry, Francois ; Jankowski, Lyce
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Book chapter
Egyptian-Greek exchange in the Late Period: the view from Nokradj-Naukratis
This volume in which this chapter appears presents 16 papers that explore aspects of the economic and religious life of the northwestern Nile Delta in the first millennium BC. The papers concentrate on presenting new research on a range of material culture—ceramics, coins, weights, statuettes, statues, royal decrees and abandoned...Villing, Alexandra
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Book
Naukratis: Greek Diversity in Egypt. Studies on East Greek Pottery and Exchange in the Eastern Mediterranean
A collection of 22 essays presenting the latest research on a comprehensive range of questions relating to the Greek presence at the site of Egyptian Naukratis as it is reflected in the pottery found there. The volume includes scientific analysis and is richly illustrated with photographs including colour illustrations, line...Villing, Alexandra ; Schlotzhauer, Udo
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Book
Symbols of Power: Ten Coins That Changed the World
Money has always been a subject of interest, today more so than ever. For centuries it has performed a key role around the globe – most obviously in trade and the economy, but also in the development of national identities, religions and the spread of empire. Introduced as measurements of...Hockenhull, Tom
numismatics and currency
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Book
The Metopes of the Temple of Apollo Epikourios at Bassai
This book brings together for the first time all of the fragments of sculpture which formed the metopes from the Temple of Apollo at Bassai. Recent research by the author and colleagues has yielded fresh discoveries in the British Museum, Athens and at the ancient site itself. Further sculptural fragments...Higgs, Peter John
Greek sculpture, Bassai, and metopes
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Book chapter
Lives that bind: three stories from the World of Stonehenge
Through the stories of three recent archaeological discoveries, and the lives they reflect, this book chapter traces connections between different parts of Britain, Ireland and Continental Europe, c.3000 – 1000 BC.Wilkin, Neil
Stonehenge, exhibition, and prehistory
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Journal article
Natural mummies from Predynastic Egypt reveal the world's earliest figural tattoos
The application of tattoos to the human body has enjoyed a long and diverse history in many ancient cultures. At present, the oldest surviving examples are the mainly geometric tattoos on the individual known as Ötzi, dating to the late 4th millennium BCE, whose skin was preserved by the ice... -
Book chapter
Rising above the propaganda: German medallic art in Britain (1914–1919)
During the First World War museums in Britain faced numerous challenges to their collecting and display strategies. Many museums were temporarily closed owing to a cut in government grant aid, which proved severely restrictive to available display space and caused considerable controversy, both in Britain and in Europe. In Vienna,...Hockenhull, Tom
medals and World War I
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Book chapter
Greece and Egypt: reconsidering early contact and exchange
Scholarship has long recognized the vital significance of cross-cultural interaction to the development of the Mediterranean world of the early first millennium BC. Relations between Greece and Egypt, however, are often little considered in this context. Recent archaeological discoveries and the critical restudy of earlier fieldwork enable a fresh perspective...Villing, Alexandra
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Book chapter
South Asia
This volume provides a thorough conspectus of the field of Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek studies, mixing theoretical and historical surveys with critical and thought-provoking case studies in archaeology, history, literature and art. The chapters from this international group of experts showcase innovative methodologies, such as archaeological GIS, as well as providing...Jansari, Sushma
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Journal article
Between Apollo and Osiris: Egyptianising East Greek pottery, translating gods and cross-cultural interaction in the 6th century B.C
Relatively few Greek fine ware vessels have been uncovered in Egyptian contexts of the late 7th and 6th centuries B.C., the majority of East Greek production. Remarkably, though, the shape and imagery of a good number of them seem to reference local Egyptian customs and ideas, notably Osirian religion and...Villing, Alexandra
Apollo, East Greek pottery, Typhon, Greeks in Egypt, and Greek mythology
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Journal article
'Mediocre essays in medallic vituperation': German First World War medals and the British Museum
The centenary of the outbreak of the First World War provides a timely opportunity to examine the British Museum’s acquisition of German art medals relating to the conflict. A modest collection of thirty-six medals was acquired between 1916 and the end of the war in 1918 but, in that same...Hockenhull, Tom
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Book
Munch and his World: Graphic Arts and the Avant-garde in Paris and Berlin
Munch and his World: Graphic Arts and the Avant-garde in Paris and Berlin is a visually stunning publication which offers new insights into the life and world of the artist Edvard Munch. The art of Edvard Munch is striking for the originality and universality of its themes, which cross moments...Bartrum, Giulia
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Journal article
Rhodes and Kos: East Dorian pottery production of the Archaic period
To date, the pottery production of Rhodes, Kos and other ‘East Dorian’ islands and coastal areas remains little understood. This article presents and discusses new neutron activation analysis (NAA) of eighth–sixth-century vessels found on Rhodes and in related areas, placing them in the wider context of past and present archaeometric...Villing, Alexandra ; Mommsen, Hans
NAA, Rhodes, and East Greek pottery
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Book chapter
Untangling megalithic typologies and chronologies in the Levant
The Levant comprises southern Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. These well-surveyed archaeological landscapes contain a miscellany of features that incorporate megalithic blocks in various ways. To 19th century explorers, these features recalled megalithic monuments in Europe, and they used European terms such as cromlech and...Fraser, James
Levant, Dolmens, and Bronze Age
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Journal article
Parallel worlds and mixed economies: multi-proxy analysis reveals complex subsistence systems at the dawn of early farming in the northeast Baltic
The transition from foraging to farming was a key turning point in ancient socio-economies. Yet, the complexities and regional variations of this transformation are still poorly understood. This multi-proxy study provides a new understanding of the introduction and spread of early farming, challenging the notions of hierarchical economies. The most... -
Journal article
The mystery of Naukratis: revealing Egypt’s international gateway
An article on the lost port of Naukratis, once Egypt’s great international gateway. Despite pioneering late 19th-century archaeological research at the site, Naukratis has since languished in the shadows. Who really lived there, how did the port work, and what salacious secrets were hidden away by the Victorians? Its mysteries...Villing, Alexandra ; Thomas, R.I.
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Journal article
Spicing wine at the symposion: fact or fiction? Some critical thoughts on material aspects of commensality in the Early Iron Age and Archaic Mediterranean world
Interpretations of metal graters and pottery tripod bowls as Leitfossils of a trans-Mediterranean ‘orientalizing’ culture of spiced-wine consumption have of late become a staple of scholarship on sympotic banqueting, shaping our perception of ancient wine-drinking and its role in cross-cultural interaction in the first half of the first millennium BC....Villing, Alexandra
Archaic Greece, Symposion, and Foodways
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Book chapter
Southward Ho! A journey from Ionia to Egypt
The presence of Ionians in areas to the south and south-east of the homeland as attested by inscriptions and pottery is reviewed. From the Dodecanese to the Nile Delta pottery from Ionia is found at many sites, mostly after ca. 640 BC, but evidence of Ionians themselves through inscribed texts...Johnston, Alan ; Villing, Alexandra
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Journal article
Making pottery in the Nile Delta: ceramic provenance and technology at Naukratis, 6th–3rd centuries BC
The interdisciplinary study of Egyptian- and Greek-style pottery found in the Nile Delta aims to test and expand the potential of different scientific methods to identify regional variation and cultural traditions in ceramic fabrics from a relatively uniform geological setting. Neutron activation analysis (NAA), polarised light microscopy and SEM-EDX analyses...Spataro, Michela ; Mommsen, Hans ; Villing, Alexandra
SEM-EDX, Polarised microscopy, NAA, Egyptian pottery, and chaîne opératoire
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Book chapter
Egypt and Greece: early encounters
A chapter on early encounters between Egypt and Greece in the catalogue that accompanied the 2016 British Museum exhibition, Sunken Cities: Egypt's Lost WorldsMasson-Berghoff, Aurélia ; Villing, Alexandra
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Book chapter
Forms of largitio and 'denominations' of silver plate in Late Antiquity: the evidence of flanged bowls
This chapter examines the links between Roman silver plate and silver coinage in the late Roman period broadly from the time of the Tetrarchy until the end of the fourth century. It argues that in order to fully to understand the importance of the role of silver in the late...Hobbs, Richard
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Book
Tell Dafana Reconsidered: The Archaeology of an Egyptian Frontier Town
This publication arises from a British Museum research project to consider the relationship between Egypt and Archaic Greece from the seventh century BC down to the fifth, through a re-assessment of the site of ancient Daphnae (now known as Tell Dafana) in the Nile Delta of Egypt. A great quantity...Leclère, François ; Spencer, Jeffrey
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Book chapter
A visitor-focused approach to interpretation and learning
An illustrated overview of the British Museum's interpretation and learning programme centred around the Albukhary Foundation Gallery of the Islamic World that opened at the British Museum in 2018. The chapter discusses new way of interpreting objects in the Museum's collection based on years of visitor research as well as...Frost, Stuart
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Book chapter
Recent fieldwork at Dangeil, Nile State in the Amun temple complex
An overview of the recent fieldwork at Dangeil, including the discovery of the Amun temple complex, in a collection of papers presented at the 11th International Congress for Meroitic Studies in Vienna, 2008.Anderson, Julie ; Ahmed, Salah Mohammed ; Suliman , Mahmoud
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Book chapter
Cyprus and Assyria
A overview of the relationship between Cyprus and Assyria at the time of Ashurbanipal in an exhibition catalogue to accompany the 2018 British Museum exhibition, I am Ashurbanipal: king of the world, king of Assyria.Kiely, Thomas
Assyria, Ashurbanipal, archaeology, and Cyprus
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Journal article
Discerning differences: Ion beam analysis of ancient faience from Naukratis and Rhodes
Faience technology was known in Egypt since the Predynastic Period and practiced for a period also in Bronze Age Greece, but, having been lost, was reintroduced to the Greek world only in the fi rst half of the fi rst millennium BC. The Greek island of Rhodes and the Greek-Egyptian...Meek, Andrew ; Bouquillon, Anne ; Lehuédé, Patrice ; Masson, Aurélia ; Villing, Alexandra …
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Book chapter
Cult and trade. A reflexion on Egyptian metal offerings from Naucratis
This volume in which this chapter appears presents 16 papers that explore aspects of the economic and religious life of the northwestern Nile Delta in the first millennium BC. The papers concentrate on presenting new research on a range of material culture—ceramics, coins, weights, statuettes, statues, royal decrees and abandoned...Masson, Aurélia
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Journal article
Égyptiens et Grecs à Naucratis et Daphnae. Projets en cours du British Museum
Deux sites archéologiques majeurs du delta du Nil fondées dès le debut de l’epoque saite, Naucratis et Daphnae, suscitent depuis longtemps l’intérêt partagé — et parfois un vif débat — des égyptologues et des specialistes du monde classique. L’essentiel du très abondant matériel découvert lors des premières fouilles avait pris...Leclère, François ; Spencer, Jeffrey ; Villing, Alexandra
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Book chapter
Egyptian and Cypriot stone statuettes in context at Late Period Naukratis
Naukratis held a privileged position as a controlled port of trade and base for traders from its founding at the end of the seventh century BC until the establishment of Alexandria. This study will focus on the Cypriot and Egyptian stone statuettes that dominate the figurine assemblage during this important...Thomas, Ross
Greek religion, Egyptian religion, Statuettes, ARCHAEOLOGY: Naukratis, Greek temples, Domestic religion, Figurines, and Terracottas
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Book chapter
Naukratis, “Mistress of ships” in context
This volume in which this chapter appears presents 16 papers that explore aspects of the economic and religious life of the northwestern Nile Delta in the first millennium BC. The papers concentrate on presenting new research on a range of material culture—ceramics, coins, weights, statuettes, statues, royal decrees and abandoned...Thomas, Ross
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Exhibition catalogue
Troy: Myth and Reality
Published to accompany a major exhibition at the British Museum, this beautifully illustrated book searches for the reality behind both the legends and the site of the ancient city itself. It introduces the storytellers who set down the original narrative, and recounts the fateful course of events – from the...Villing, Alexandra ; Fitton, J. Lesley ; Donnellan, Victoria ; Shapland, Andrew
Greek myth, Reception of antiquity, Classics, Troy, Trojan War, Homer, and Classical reception studies
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Book chapter
Hoarding in Roman Britain: an archaeological and contextual approach
An overview of the approach and results of the British Museum / Leicester University AHRC funded project studying Iron Age and Roman hoards from Britain.Ghey, Eleanor
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Book chapter
Dynamism and scale in Western Asian Bronze Age trade networks
Cultural contacts and exchange are constituents of human behavior – ancient and modern. Within archaeology, particularly in that of Western Asia, the topic and related phenomena have been intensively studied during the last decades, leading to a re-evaluation of the cultural and economic, as well as physical landscapes throughout the...D’Alfonso , Lorenzo ; Highcock, Nancy A.